thin
adjective · verb · noun · adverb
Simple meaning
Having little body fat or flesh.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
thinIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈθɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Having little body fat or flesh; slim; slender; lean; gaunt.
Of relatively small extent from one surface to the opposite or in cross section
Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.
Very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions.
Scarce; not close, crowded, or numerous; not filling the space.
of sound
Lacking resonance or volume
verb
To remove some plants or parts of plants in order to improve the growth of what remains.
To dilute.
transitive
To make thin or thinner.
noun
Any food produced or served in thin slices.
adverb
Not thickly or closely; in a scattered state.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of relatively small extent from one surface to the opposite or in cross section
Used this way, thin is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Mild
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- scraggy , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use thin
- “Air is thin at high altitudes.”adjective
- “You can't be too rich or too thin.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A diluting agent.
The act of diluting something.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Without force or sincere effort.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Shears with one serrate blade.
Nowhere to be found in a giant void.
Erect blueberry of western United States having solitary flowers and somewhat sour berries.
Stringybark having white wood.
Make sparse.
A person who is unusually thin and scrawny.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.